Higher Powers
The Higher Powers are the collection of gods, demi-gods, and generally incredibly "high up there" spiritual forces that exist beyond the normal realm of the Blood Tales world. They include: The Powers That Be 3 of the highest and most powerful forces, governing the balance. They are set above, and therefore are able to determine the fate of, powers at the level of Terra. We only hear their voice, but we can hear one to be old a frail, likely representing wisdom and knowledge, one sounding more factual, and downright grumpy, represting reality and humanity, and one sounding very cool and calculating, representing the future, and current plans for the grand balance of things. One could possibly argue that The Darkest Power could be a fourth, as the evil it represents should be considered part of the balance of things (ie, without evil there is no such thing as good), but it was felt best to leave him as his own. It is these 3 that decide the fate of Terra, and thereby, Earth, by resurrecting her, sending her back to Earth to close the Hellmouth. Terra A demi-goddess representation of the Earth, there to watch over the planet. Represented as a pure blonde girl, visually no older than her twenties. A large contributor to the story arc. Having watched over the Earth that she loves so much for aeons, she decides to make herself human and experience it herself at a time where the civillisation is starting to culturally develop (around the time that Belmez and Kadic are living in their own large house). She forms a romantic relationship with Belmez, before being raped and killed by human attackers, experiencing the awful side of the planet too. During her time with Belmez, they have sex, and as she is killed before she can grow a child inside her, when returning to the higher realms, she decides to develop a life based on her and Belmez - Priscilla - and sending it to Earth, with a long and vivid recorded memory explaining everything implanted in her head, designed to unlock when she is old enough to know. She, in the current time, exists mostly as an occasionally visiting entity, offering aid to either those who need it, at times when, for lack of a better phrase, when the shit hits the fan, or, if she is summoned and wagered with or challenged (like Oblivion does in Motley). She brings back Belmez, after his fight with Jon, faster, stronger, and better, with the benefit of a restored, madness-less, mind, knowing that he was going to try to help Jon in the future, and also because, given their past relationship, it would frankly have been rude of her not too. However, after Belmez commits rape, it hits a nerve with her, and Belmez, expecting to be brought back by her over and over again, meets a surprise upon his final extermination. It is under her orders that Jolt throws his corpse unceremoniously into the Thames. Terra's relationship with Deus is a tricky one - she does not wish to offend him (purely through manners, not of fear), but is sometimes somewhat irked by his constant trying. She resultedly blesses him with the Absolute following a wager with Oblivion, nearly leading to the destruction of everything after it fuses with his own damaged mind and burning urge to commit violent revenge upon all and sundry. During the Absolute Corruption/Hellmouth incident with Deus, she is killed in a single shot by him, in her own godly realm. Later, back on Earth, when Absolute Corruption Deus attempts to open the Hellmouth, the Powers That Be resurrect her at the last moment, and she, with a little help from the casters, seals the Hellmouth, and ascends herself and, with her touch, a calmed and finally satiated Deus, to another plane. Terra seems to have a rather relaxed attitude toward death - more than likely because she can ressurrect people without a scratch on them. She can't, however, fix something mentally scarring like a rape, which is something she detests. She didn't even seem to be that distraught when Jon kills Oblivion - although this may be simply because she can't return back to protest. Deus We have all heard of the phrase "a deal with the devil". The idea behind Deus is that the devil is too busy with the millions (an increased number from usual, which can partly be put down to human fear, given the events that keep happening in the world, increased vampire sightings, undead swarms, etc) of offers he receives daily, so Deus is a being that is sent out to make the deals - one could say he's an admin of the devil. Granted extremely strong powers to carry out his job, his powers are comparable to, but nowhere near matching, The Darkest Power. His powers include, but are not limited to, unfathomable battle skills, on comparison with the normally and popularly believed skills of the Grim Reaper, speed, strategy, the ability to turn himself into smoke, mental inception (forced "visions" of his own design into the minds of people ; a sort of mental voicemail), and unbelievable levels of perception - ie, it is considered impossible to sneak up on him. He can also shift himself through a small period of time to compensate with the sheer inundation of his own work - ie, at 1.07pm, someone wishes to make a deal, so he appears to them, has a five minute conversation with the pledge, and when this is finished, can appear to the next pledge at 1.08pm. A simple, if somewhat, childish comparison, is Santa delivering presents to every single house in the world in one night. He cannot use this power in a battle situation - it is inbuilt purely for task purposes. Before his joining with The Darkest Force, he was a man who fell for Terra in her godess form several hundreds of years ago. Upon learning that she had joined the Earth as a human for a while, he travelled to the town, arriving too late, after her death. His heart broken, he became a bitter shell of a person, bent on nothing more than exterminating anyone involved with the incident, and also, on a twisted level, anyone he ever discovered to be unfaithful, cheating, a rapist - basically, anyone fouling the concept of straight-up love. It transpires that two of the rapists' ancestors happen to be Jon and Ash - always managing to arrive too late to stop the bloodline passing on, be it his own fault, or at later dates, his immortal job not giving him enough free time. On one attempt to stop the ancestral bloodline, he attempts to kill a necromancer, who bests him in battle, and, using curved knives, rips out both of his eyes. Bleeding to death, he is visited by The Darkest Force, who offers him immortality and his current powers in exchange for working for him, which he accepts. He is brought back, albeit with a permanent wound - Deus has no eyes in his head, and the sockets continuously bleed. He is provided with a blindfold from The Darkest Power that stops the bleeding, and the power imbued on him make a lack of eyesight absolutely irrelevant. After centuries of work, he is granted some time off, and hunts down the newest generation of the rapists' descendants - Ash and Jon - and notices that nearly all of their acquaintances are commiting infidelities in his eyes, so instead of merely slaying them, makes a challenge to Jon of the task, after killing Ash. After a series of confrontations, the Hunters and Deus meet in battle, and it quickly turns to Deus' side. The newly imbued Belmez appears from nowhere, and, with his new Terra's Blessing powers, quickly finishes him. As Deus dies, Terra appears before him, comforting him. During Motley, Oblivion learns of the back history of the Hunters, and, following a wager with Terra, ressurrects Deus with an unlimited level of power, with the intention of controlling a force with a double-solidified vendetta against the very people she wants dead. The power, however, corrupts him entirely, and, feeding off of itself, consumes and warps him, to the point where he operates entirely out of his control, the evil merely using him as a marionette to move around with. It is worth mentioning that, out of his control, he makes his way to Terra's realm and kills her. The small part of Deus that remains is emotionally destroyed by this, allowing for the final corruption of him. The final corruption beats the Earth team (which at this point is formed from the extended Hunters and Oblivion Inc.) to within an inch of existence, and attempts to open the Hellmouth. The newly ressurrected Terra, Jon, Jolt, Nazli, and Oblivion manage to seal the Hellmouth, and in a final act of goodness in this realm, Terra embraces Deus, taking all the evil from him, and giving him the one thing he wanted from the start - her - and they ascend to another plane, never to be heard of again. The Darkest Power The Darkest Power What you would normally call Satan, The Devil, Djinn, etc. The representation of evil on the planet. Barely mentioned, and never seen. Never has a direct influence on the plot (as pitting the Hunters, or anyone for that matter, against Satan himself, would just be jumping the shark), but is involved.